DAVID reckons Parkhead and Ibrox are better venues for creating atmosphere than the National Stadium and points to Sunday's League Cup Final as proof.

I REALLY enjoyed Sunday. Well, apart from the two hours when the ball was being kicked around the Parkhead playing surface like a hot potato.

Let’s face it, the League Cup Final was a poor football match.

Neither Aberdeen nor Inverness really turned up on the day and the real excitement was reserved for the penalty shoot-out.

But
for all that, Sunday was a triumph for the game in our country. It was a
sign that despite all the crap we’ve endured over the past two or three
years, that Scottish football has not keeled over.

There have been times it has wobbled like a drunk heading home on a Saturday night.

And there have been times when it has looked like it has needed a defibrillator applied to its chest to jolt it back to life.

But when you looked out from the Main Stand at Celtic Park on Sunday afternoon you did not see a game in a comatose state.

You saw anticipation and trepidation. You saw joy and despair. You saw excitement and eagerness and you saw 51,000 people forgetting about the real world for almost two and a half hours and living inside the bubble that only football can provide.

I’ll get to Aberdeen’s supporters in a minute. But not enough has been made of those who travelled from the Highland capital. Inverness have a core of 3000 fans but more than double that number were there on Sunday.

Yes,
there is an argument these folk who turned out for a final in Glasgow but won’t go to a match on their doorstep are glory-hunters but they contributed to the spectacle.

They were dwarfed, of course, by the turnout from the Granite City. What a show of solidarity with their club that was.

This
was a set of fans who have been kicked in the teeth so often that they should look like Plug from The Beano. Come to think of it.

But they kept the faith. And 19 years after winning the last one, 43,000 of them saw them lift another League Cup.

Incidentally, when the Dons beat Dundee in the 95 final the attendance was 33,099. Sunday’s was 51,143 – over 17,000 more.

The colour and the sense of occasion spilled from every occupied seat and the noise cascading down from those steep slopes assaulted the ears. Five minutes from the end of regulation time the Aberdeen fans ramped it up and I swear the Main Stand was shaking.

This
lot have binned the sweetie wrappers and are now using their voices to become Aberdeen’s extra man. They certainly helped their players get over the line on Sunday.

And
they did it in a stadium that lends itself to a real sense of occasion.
Celtic Park – and Ibrox for that matter – are made for this kind of match.

Hampden, unfortunately, cannot generate the same kind of intensity. The fans, particularly those behind the goals, are too far removed from the action and the noise they make rises upwards and out the ground.

At Ibrox and Parkhead, there’s no such problem.

With Hampden being out of
action thanks to the Commonwealth Games we’ll get to enjoy another cup final at Celtic Park this season and two semis at Ibrox.

Those
matches will only show how much more suitable those grounds are to host
big football matches than the National Stadium is. Scotland’s opening home matches in the Euro 16 qualifying campaign will also be played away from Hampden and if Sunday is an indicator that is no bad thing.

Hampden
may be our spiritual home – a venue with a storied history but the current stadium is nothing like the one that hosted so many heroes.

This one is a soulless shell that does not inspire. I’m in no rush to see Scotland go back there and don’t think the Scottish Cup Final will lose anything by being held at Celtic Park.

If Aberdeen get there to play Dundee United in the Final Sunday’s atmosphere will have been a church fete in comparison to what will come on May 17.